Olivia decided that Will would tutor Tig every Tuesday after school for half an hour in the library. Try as she might, Tig couldn’t find a way out of it.
At the first tutoring session, Olivia walked with Will to the library to meet Tig. “She’s probably going to be a tough one,” Olivia said to Will, right in front of Tig. “You wouldn’t believe how hard she fought this whole tutoring idea. She must really hate algebra!”
“Yep,” said Tig. “I do hate me some algebra, all right.”
“Well, good luck, Will,” Olivia said. “Call me later?”
“Sure,” Will said.
Olivia left, and Will sat down next to Tig and opened his algebra book. “Did you bring your book with you?” he asked.
“No,” Tig said. “Forgot it.” She really had forgotten it, but she wished she hadn’t.
“You can look on with me,” Will said.
He moved the book, and his chair, closer to Tig. His shoulder touched hers. Regan had been right: it felt like an electric shock.
“Okay, these kinds of problems are all about multiple operations,” he said.
“Yeah,” Tig said. She knew exactly how to work the problems; they were easy, in fact. But she needed to play dumb. “I mean, what do I do first? There are so many numbers and letters.”
Will looked at her and narrowed his eyes. “Tig, why are we even doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Tutoring. Me, tutoring you in algebra? “You’re as good at algebra as I am.”
“No, I’m not,” Tig replied. “I’m really having a tough time.”
“Whatever you say,” Will said. “Now then, with this one, you have to remember to change the negative to a positive because of the negative sign inside the parenthesis.”
They worked on about a dozen problems, Tig feigning ignorance the entire time. It was excruciating to work such easy problems so slowly, but she couldn’t tell Will the truth; that she’d lied about her algebra grade in order to cover up being rattled by Regan.
The timer on Tig’s phone went off. “That’s thirty minutes,” she said. “Gotta run.”
“Same time next week?”
“You know what? I think I’ve had a real breakthrough. It all makes sense now. You really don’t have to tutor me anymore.”
“Are you sure?”
“Totally. Everything is going to be fine. I know now what I’m supposed to do.”
What I’m supposed to do, Tig thought, is stay as far away from you as possible.